Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Slightly Baffled

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

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Warning: here be spoilers America, sometime in the near future. Astrobiologist Theo Byrne raises his son Robin alone after the death of his wife. He feels like he’s doing a terrible job, especially when Robin is sent home from school for smashing his only friend’s face with a thermos. Robin is a complicated child; intelligent but suffering from Aspergers, ADHD, OCD and probably a few other things. Theo is weary to accept the decision; Robin’s school, meanwhile, is pushing him to put the boy on […]

Infused with humanity

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

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CBR 14 BINGO: Star, because it takes place mostly in space BINGO: Gaslight, Scandal, Star, Monster, Bodies My experience with Ray Bradbury up to this point has been limited to Fahrenheit 451, which is a top-notch novel–at least, I remember it being so when I read it, oh, thirty years ago. Having picked up The Martian Chronicles, I’m ashamed that I’ve neglected Bradbury for so long. A science fiction writer with broad appeal, Bradbury infuses every story, even those about Martians, with humanity. The Martian […]

Vinh not being sure of something was kind of like concrete turning into Jell-O.

Ex Appeal by Cathy Yardley

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Ex Appeal is the much anticipated (by me) third instalment of the Ponto Beach Reunion series.  In the first two books, Love, Comment, Subscribe and Gouda Friends, we’ve seen Vinh Doan and Emily MacDonald in the background. They were high school sweethearts who went off to college together and then Vinh broke up with Emily when she needed him most. If you are a longtime romance reader, you know they are definitely getting back together. It’s a classic set-up. In the years since their break-up, […]

Take Me. I Am a Scientist. I Also Lift Things

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

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This book was a bit of lighthearted fun. It was also a novel with fingerprints of the pandemic all over it. Like many others, Jamie Bell’s life was turned upside down by Covid-19. Dropped from their position as a marketing executive by a local start up, they finds themselves working as a delivery driver while trying to keep their flat-mates afloat. All this changes though with a chance run in with an old classmate named Tom. Tom works for an “animal rights organization” and his […]

Mindy and change

Paws: Mindy Makes Some Space by Nathan Fairbairn

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Paws: Mindy Makes Some Space by Nathan Fairbairn, and illustrated by Michele Assarasakorn   This book is a cozy friendship story that includes three best friends, lots of dogs, a cat named Chonk, and (finally) new friends. There are a lot of bumps along the way (and hopefully only chocolate in the face of one girl) but still it makes for a fun read.   Now the bumps are several fold. First, there was a story plot mentioned that was confusing to me as I was thinking […]

Moriens sed Invictus ~ Dying but Unconquered

O Caledonia: A Novel by Elspeth Barker

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O Caledonia was originally published in 1991 and was reissued last year with a new introduction by Maggie O’Farrell. I’d never heard of this book before but saw it at the bookstore. The cover looked like it would be suitably dark for a Halloween-ish read, and it is. This book might be for you if you enjoyed I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith) or We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson) as, like those two novels, it features a teenaged protagonist living in […]



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